Nut cracking machine



g 1935- M. ALBRECHT ETAL 2,010,794

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Filed May 15, 1951 5 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTORS 711L242. y 'YZJMM Arromm's 1935- M. L. ALBRECHT ET AL 2,010,794

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Filed May 15, 1951 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 j v INVENTOR5 fimz; (W BY my A TTORNEYS 1935- M. L. ALBRECHT ET AL 2,010,794

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Filed May 15, 1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 v I INVENTORS Zm-IW BY AM A TTORNEY Aug. 6, 1935. M, ALBRE HT T AL 2,010,794

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Filed May 15, l95l 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 flz iaf l l l l l l m wlmgg INVENTORj 2% 294164411 BY 71444424 x 44...

ATTORNEYS,

Aug. 6', 1935 M. L. ALBRECHT ETAL 2,010,794

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Filed May 15, 1931 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 .INVENTOR-S 21%; {M

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ATTORNEYS.

Patented Aug. 6, 1935 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Our invention relates chines for cracking nuts and particularly to machines for cracking pe- In the art there has been some develop- *5 ment of nut cracking machines in which nuts cans.

are fed on a conveyor t or plungers which engage the nut and crack it endwise, but as far as we are advised, such machines have not been commercially completely successful due to the great variation in the length and size of the variation in the size of the nuts cracked and the difficulty of positively cracking a great number of different sized nuts, without allowing a considerable proportion of t uncracked, large producti ing, particularly pecans, have not come into widespread use.

which reciprocating plun gripping faces which compensate for the sharp tip-like ends of the shells, so that whether the nut has a tip on it or not,

the cracking plungers and satisfactorily cracked.

. Another object of our vision of a machine in which there is only one cracking chamber and in which mechanism is provided for automatically discharging the cracked nut from the cracking chamber imme- .diately after it has been Another object is the provision of nut cracking mechanism in which adjustments for dif ferent sized nuts and for different rates of operation may. be quickly and Referring to the drawi illustrated a preferred type of mechanism:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of the machine with parts broken away construction of the machine.

Figure 2 is a sectional view taken along the lines 2-2 in Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a vertical [along the lines 33 in Figure 1.

Figure 4 is a detail perspective of onetype of cam adjustment for varying the cracking stroke of the cracking plungers,

NUT CRACKING MACHINE Martin L. Albrecht and Frederick W. Brehmer,

Cincinnati, Ohio, assignors to The F. W. Brehmer Machine & Tool Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application May 15, 1931, Serial No. 537,722

3 Claims. (01. 146-42) to nut cracking maona commercial scale, able cam segment.

0 reciprocating pistons and its mechanism.

end'of one of the plungers. nuts. With the great follower plunger.

he nuts to go through supporting members i.

on machines for crack- Figure 4a is a detail perspective of an adjust- Figure 5 is a side elevation of the machine. Figure 6 is an enlargement of the right hand side of Fig. 2, better showing the follower plunger Figure 7 is a cross section on the same scale, on the line 7-1 of Figure 2 or Figure 6.

Figure 8 is an elevation of the nut engaging Figure 9 is a partial perspective view of the Referring to Figure 5, it will be noted that the machine is mounted on the usual frame work There is a hopper 2 into which the nuts are placed so that they will be picked up by the buckets 3 of a link chain conveyor 4, and carried up and deposited in the of the links of the chain pass.

buckets 3 extend.

gers are provided with for the cracking plunger l2. it will be held between invention is the proin Figure 2, so that the cam operated on.

accurately made. I2 from rotating.

ngs, in which we have to reveal the 7 internal cracking chamber indicated at 5.

An electric motor 6 operates through suitable pinion and worm gears I to drive a shaft on which are mounted sprockets 8 over which the set Referring to Figure 1, there are two sets of chains, 4, which carry flights 9, from which the The chain links as noted engage the sprockets 8 which are mounted on the shaft [0, shown in Figure 2. On one end of the shaft Hi, we have shown the cam l l which operates the mechanism On the other end of the shaft 10, we have indicated the cam l3 which actuates the follower plunger l4.

. The cracking plunger [2 has a slot [5 through which extends a fixed pin IS. The plunger is hollow and retains a compression spring H, which normally presses the plunger to the left as shown rider I8, which is operatively connected to the plunger [2, is held against and rides over the face IQ of the cam ll. Another rider lBa which rides in a mechanical groove l9a in the housing prevents the plunger The follower plunger I4 is also hollow and has a slot 28 therein through which extends a fixed pin 2|, and a compression spring 22 urges the plunger l4 normally to the left as indicated in Figure 2, so that its cam rider 23, rides along the face 24 of the cam l3. The plunger I4 is held from rotation by a rider 23a which rides in a sectional view taken points projecting outwardly.

machined groove 24a in the machine housing.

' g It will'be noted that the cracking ends of the plungers l2 and M are provided with roughened surfaces Ma which consists of a series of small When a nut is cracked the tip of the nut extends down between the points and the bearing on the nut, regardless of whether or not the nut has tips at its ends, is formed by the combined surfaces of the several points. Thus, not only is allowance made for nuts which have no tips, but due to the points, the ends of the nut are grasped firmly and so have no tendency to slip diagonally and thus not be subjected to the cracking pressure of the reciprocating plungers.

Mounted on the shaft N), we have indicated particularly in Fig. 3, the tripping device for emp-' tying the nut from the cracking chamber after it has been cracked. On the shaft it), there is a disc member 25 having trip lugs 26 extending therefrom. The base or the cracking chamber is pro vided by means of a shaped plate 23 mounted fixedly on a rotatable shaft 23. The plate 2i also has fixedly mounted thereon, a trip lug 29 which is engaged by the trip lugs 26, and at a properly tiiiid interval after the reciprocating pistons have reached the extreme limit of movement in their cracking stroke,- the plate 2? is rocked in a clockwise direction, as indicated in Figure 3, thereby allowing the nut to drop down into a chute 31}, from which it is fed througha chute 3|,- as shewn in Figure it, into a suitable receptacle for receiving the cracked nuts. Spring are urges the plate 2'8, after it has been tripped, back to a position forming the base of the cracking chamber.

We have indicated in Figure 4, a carh l having a slot in which a cam segment 32, which has a screw hole therein, may be secured to the cam I l with a screw 34. Ordinarily we find that the cracking stroke may be accomplished by about an eighth of an inch relative movement between the plungers after the nut is securely held therein. If it is desired to increase the cracking stroke from an eighth of an inch, for exampie, to threesixteenths of an men, as is sometimes necessary, we merely remove the cam segment 32 and substitute therefor a cam segment 32a such as is in-' dicated in Figure 4a, whichhas a high point which extends out a little farther than the high point on the cam segment 32. Siich a fine adjust ment as is noted, will often make the difference with a given run of nuts as to whether the nut is sufficiently cracked to have the shell drop subs'tantially off or whether the shell will be merely cracked so that a further picking is required.

The nut cracking mechanism performs its cracking operation as followsi- The nuts are fed up singly to the cracking chamber on the carrier buckets 3, and immediately after a nut is dropped into the cracking chamber, so that it rests on the V plate 2?, both pistons start to mo ie inwardly, the piston i2 being forced positively by means of its rider riding up on the cam surface of the cai'n H, and the piston i l, due to the compression of the spring 22, and the riding down of its cam rider 213 on the downwardly sloping surface at the cam I3.

The pressure or the spring 22 is'not sufficient to cause the follower plunger to crack the nut but is merely s'ufliciei'it to hold the nut firinly endwise between the roughened surfaces MCL of the piung'ers. However, as the high point on the earn it is reached, a spring-pressed cam surfaced pin 33 is forcedto such a position that its cam surface 33d binds against a correspondingly ta-v pe'red cam surface 34 on one side of the plunger 14. The shaft It carries a matched cam ais e 35 having shoulders 36 which act to engage and rotate a gear segment 3? mounted on a shaft $8 and meshing with rack teeth on the pin 33. The segment 3? has a trip lug 39 which is engaged twice during each rotation of the shaft H3 by a shoulder 36. The disc 35 is keyed on the shaft ill so as to rock the gear segment 3? and cause the pin 33 to be moved back against the compression of the spring excepting. when the cracking plunger is to make its stroke, when, at the cracking interval, the lug 39 drops into one of the notches on the disc 35 when the spring pressing the pin 33 causes it to bind against the plunger 34 causing it to remain stationary until the nut is cracked.

When the plunger 33 is released, and holds the plunger l' immovable, the plunger i2 advances the balance of its cracking stroke, which, as has been noted, may be varied by changing the hig-l'i spots on the cam employed. As soon as the cam ride-r 53 starts to ride down the cam surface, the gear segment 3'1? returns the pin 33 out of blocking position and plunger M is brought backout or the cracking chamber,- because being free to be retracted, itsca'rn rider 23 starts to ride up the surface of the cam 83. The locking mechanism will be effective regardless of the distance which the plunger id advances, as will be apparent.

As soon as both plungers have backed out from the cracking chamber, the V plate 2? is tripped and the nut drops down into the chute as.

We prefer to provide a motor with a Worm wheel drive, and in order to change the speed, a different motor may be provided, or we may use a variable speed motor,

Thus, for display purposes, it be desirable to operate the machine at, for example, sixty strokes per minute, whereas in actual production work, it may be desirable to increase the speed to one hundred twenty strokes per minute.

While we have shown a conveyor feed for conveying the nut singly to the cracking chamber, other types of feed in which the nuts are fed to such chamber may be employed, without departing from the principle of our invention.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, isf

1; in a nut cracking machine having a chamber, nut cracking members having an approach ing relative movement and a recessive relative move ent in said chamber, means yieldingly causing the approaching movement of one member, a cam causing the recessive movement of said one member, a cam causing the approaching movement of the other member, a member yieldingly pressed to one member to hold said one member in its approached position, having a wedging engagement with said one member, a cam to withdraw said holding member from its wed'g'ihg engagement, all of said cams being on a common axis parallel with the line of movement of the nut cracking members, an element rotating co-axially with said cams, and a conveyer running around said element and across the top or" said chamber. dro ping nuts into said chamber, said cams 'co-ordinating the movement of said conve'yor and the movements of the nut cracking members and the holding member, whereby the one member is positively held as the other nut cracking member approaches it to crack a nut, 70

ber and a follower member yiel-oing'ly pressed toward the cracking member, the cracking memher being positively pressed toward the follower member, and a holder for the follower member,

yieldingly pressed thereto, the contacting surfaces of the follower member and the holder being inclined to the direction of pressure and the direction of pressure being at a substantial angle to the direction of pressure of the cracking member, whereby a self-adjusting wedging action is produced to hold the follower member resistant to the pressure of the cracking member, means to cause pressure and recession of the cracking member, means to cause recession of the follower member as the cracking member recedes, and means to withdraw the holding member to permit the recession of the follower member.

3. In a nut cracking machine comprising a cracking member and a follower member yieldingly pressing the nut toward the cracking member, mechanism to cause cracking pressure by the cracking member and a following recession of the follower member, said follower member having a surface inclined to its line of movement and facing in the direction of its recession, a holding member yieldingly pressed across said line of movement and having a surface inclined to its line of movement and facing in the direction of pressing, and wedged against the inclined surface of the follower member when said follower member is in nut-pressing position, and means whereby said mechanism withdraws said holding member from its wedging position to permit the recession of the follower member 15 from said nut-pressing position.

MARTIN L. ALBRECHT. FREDERICK W. BREHMER. 

